Stand-up, sit down (From The Northern Echo)

Paul Tonkinson’s delighted to be taking on a TV challenge, he tells Viv Hardwick

10:10am Saturday 4th September 2010 in Theatre

Paul Tonkinson’s delighted to be taking on a TV challenge, he tells Viv Hardwick.

A STAND-UP comic in search of a new TV sitcom isn’t exactly out of the ordinary these days, but Scarborough-born Paul Tonkinson thinks he may have cracked it… and there’s even the chance of the project filming in Yorkshire.

The 42-year-old award-winning funnyman is pounding the region again this weekend as one of The Grinning Idiot Comedy Club line-up, dashing between St Dominics, in Newcastle, and Live Theatre, on the city’s Quayside tonight.

He admits that stand-up is his first love, but the Northern-set sit com might just revive his interest in television.

“I and a friend from Stockton, the comedy magician John Archer, filmed a ten-minute teaser pilot for a sitcom, which I don’t want to talk too much about because I don’t want to hex it,” he says.

“The idea now is that producers and developers like to see things.

We’re a seeing culture now. Even expecting people to read a script is a bit of a stretch now. We sent it off to Baby Cow Productions, who produce Gavin and Stacey, and they love it.

We’re at the stage where we’ve got more money to shoot extra scenes.

“It was really nice to make something yourself. I think people are crying out for an end to comedy of social embarrassment and we’re trying to develop something based on real life that people can identify with. It’s set in a workplace and based on the banter about work, but more about slapstick and funny people doing funny things. I can confirm that it’s set in Yorkshire. We realised that everyone who was working on it was from that area, so Baby Cow said ‘why not?’.”

Tonkinson’s father lives in Thirsk and the London-based comic says he enjoys every opportunity to come North.

“I go to Scarborough every few years to do some gigs and I really love it. I left the town when I was 16 and went to Northallerton and then studied in Manchester. I remember my first gig back in Scarborough – four people who were my best mates from school were sitting in the front row, so it was quite an emotional home-coming. The town’s now got a massive new open-air theatre, so I hope to one day return in triumph and play there,” says Tonkinson, who recalls performing at the town’s Stephen Joseph Theatre as a primary school child.

“I saw Jimmy Tarbuck at Scarborough when I was eight and I said ‘I could do that’,” he adds.

Is he worried about the surge of budding stand-ups who have besieged the comedy circuit, and, particularly, the Edinburgh Fringe? “I think there has been an explosion of comedians doing arenas and stadiums rather than doing the big theatres.

People have got a whiff of the potential money they could earn and thus there are more comics coming in. It now seems intensely competitive at the lower levels, which it never was when I started. But it is a meritocracy – if you’re funny, you will progress,” says Tonkinson, who admits that he prefers doing things like the Michael McIntyre Comedy Roadshow to TV presenting.

He opted out of the Edinburgh Fringe this year and half-seriously speculates that it isn’t necessarily a great thing for the comedy industry to operate around one big event in August.

“I’m thinking of doing a show called I’m Not Doing Edinburgh This Year But I’ve Still Got Something To Say, and touring in May or June. My industry is geared to going to Edinburgh all August and my kids are on holiday then and don’t want to see dad up there expressing himself.”

■ Paul Tonkinson and Ian Cognito headline The Grinning Idiot Comedy Club’s night tonight at Live Theatre (8pm, tickets £10) and St Dominics, Newcastle (8.30pm, £12 on the door).

thegrinningidiot.com